Protecting The Pandora Against Theft At Boot Time

[Butterman]

I don't think that the "theft protection" need be foolproof. Even if something as simple as removing the card would defeat it, the point is to convince a person picking it up that it won't work for them at the outset. Once they show determination by taking it and looking into how to break the protection, it's already gone. Even if they were unable to break it without manufacturer support, you don't have it anymore. I see no reason to make yourself "feel better" by knowing that they can't possibly use it. I've had a laptop stolen at one point in my life, and I never felt worse merely because I thought of them getting use out of it. I was just irritated that I didn't have it.

Stop talking crap. Firstly, it's perfectly fine to want the dude who stole your stuff to not be able to use it. He's broken social convention, you're not doing anything morally wrong by denying him use. Revenge is healthy. Secondly, it's a perfectly good deterrent, let's say they put something in iphones that meant you could only access them with a password and for arguments sake this couldn't be cracked. A stolen iphone would be as much use to a theif as a brick, so he probably wouldn't go to the effort to steal the thing anyway.

Stop trying to take the moral high ground.

 

[Luminous]

Oh yeah, I just happened to remember.. Maybe I should put a tracking device inside the pandora in case it were to be lost.. I got the technical books for that, just need to buy the parts

 

[droneb]

LASER ENGRAVE ALL OVER IT WITH YOUR NAME AND SAYING
unless you are ...... this device is stolen!! well visible!

but going back to the boot message it would be areally good idea, if youre creative with your message
you might have better chance on getting it back.

i would really like this to be also added on the firmware, as long it requires extra/additions soft to unbrick in case of,
it would keep some quick hands away

maybe if it prompts it out after some time 12/24 H so no need to type the password all the time

 

[urjaman]

And to get around that, you simply insert this splash or console text into the NAND, where booting happens. That's what I intended. The SD card is primarily for data, anyway, unless the user decides to put his/her own OS on there.

And to get around that, you just put your own SD card in and boot while pressing (... i dont remember, one of the 3 middle keys), and voila, boot sequence changed to SD and it boots totally off the SD card.

 

[atomicthumbs]

someone who is going to steal your pandora is not going to stop because it has a password on it.

 

[Sphinxter]

Anyone ever dm_crypt root, may be do-able.

 

[droneb]

someone who is going to steal your pandora is not going to stop because it has a password on it.

it depends of what kind of events

 

[Sugar_Kane]

You could simply fill it with gay porn and selotape pictures of nude men all over it, that would probably deter a large amount of thieves

 

[hunthunt]

You could simply fill it with gay porn and selotape pictures of nude men all over it, that would probably deter a large amount of thieves

what about gay thieves?

 

[raytaller]

Please please please let's avoid the troll
I mean, the topic is quite important to me so :

• We all agree, a customizable message set in the boot menu, just before the OS starts would be a good start. As far as I understand, it can be done just by changing a resource and flashing the NAND. Is this operation risky ?
  
• Some of us agree that this message would have a lot more importance if there were a boot password. Let's be pragmatic, if the goal is only to have a little more chance to see our pandora back after a steal (and not to punish nor prevent the the steal), a password can do the job, a little. Does anyone have an idea of the work to accomplish this ?
  
• Of course engraving your coords onto the case is still possible (and prevents the thing to be sold on ebay, which is what will happend in most of cases I think), but this solution is not the most elegant, IMHO.

Thanks for sharing your ideas !

 

[raytaller]

Anyone ever dm_crypt root, may be do-able.

I don't know dm_crypt. It would be useful to protect your data, but not the device, right ?

 

[raytaller]

Please please please let's avoid the troll
I mean, the topic is quite important to me so :

• We all agree, a customizable message set in the boot menu, just before the OS starts would be a good start. As far as I understand, it can be done just by changing a resource and flashing the NAND. Is this operation risky ?
  
• Some of us agree that this message would have a lot more importance if there were a boot password. Let's be pragmatic, if the goal is only to have a little more chance to see our pandora back after a steal (and not to punish nor prevent the the steal), a password can do the job, a little. Does anyone have an idea of the work to accomplish this ?
  
• Of course engraving your coords onto the case is still possible (and prevents the thing to be sold on ebay, which is what will happend in most of cases I think), but this solution is not the most elegant, IMHO.

Thanks for sharing your ideas !

Anyone ever dm_crypt root, may be do-able.

I don't know dm_crypt. It would be useful to protect your data, but not the device, right ?

 

[marshal]

I can't think a of good way to really "protect" your device. It's unbreakable by design: The person stealing could always reflash the internal memory or boot from a sd card.

What you would need is a equivalent to a BIOS password... but that probably doesn't exist. Unless it's on a low level (like the BIOS) it just doesn't make much sense to have a protection.

With desktop computer you can usually bypass the BIOS password easily... you just need to remove the battery on your motherboard. On notebook it can be more tricky. Then again the manufacturer are able to unlock it so it's definitely not 100%. I had a toshiba A100 where I set a BIOS password... and then managed to break the keyboard (and USB keyboard didn't work on startup).
I found how to reset the BIOS password on the Internet. The info was a bit tricky to find but you just needed to short 2 point on the motherboard.

 

[Sugar_Kane]

Was I being referred to as a troll just for being humourous? Good lord, that is actually genuinely depressing

 

[raytaller]

I can't think a of good way to really "protect" your device. It's unbreakable by design: The person stealing could always reflash the internal memory or boot from a sd card.

Yes of course
I'll try to clarify this a little bit more.

• We all agree, no unbreakable protection exists. The only thing we can do is to encourage the person who get the device to send it back. If your device fells into the hands of an evil selfish linux hacker, you're out of luck, indeed. But I am sure there is something to do with the other 99% of the population.
  
• We all agree, a customizable message set in the boot menu, just before the OS starts would be a good start. As far as I understand, it can be done just by changing a resource and flashing the NAND. Is this operation risky ?
  
• Some of us agree that this message would have a lot more importance if there were a boot password. Let's be pragmatic, if the goal is only to have a little more chance to see our pandora back after a steal (and not to punish nor prevent the the steal), a password can do the job, a little. Does anyone have an idea of the work to accomplish this ?

What you would need is a equivalent to a BIOS password... but that probably doesn't exist

I don't know how does the bootloader on pandora work. Couldn't we modify it so it asks a password ? The tricky part would be to sore it somewhere - but it could still be hardcoded in the NAND. Every user who wants to set a password would have, say, to modify a specific .h, and recompile it. It is just an example as I don't know how all this is implemented.

 

[WizardStan]

I don't know how does the bootloader on pandora work.

If I recall correctly, part of what makes it unbrickable is that the bootloader exists in shadow rom which is (almost) impossible to overwrite. It can only be done with a jtag cable, I believe. No software recompile and flash can fix it. And if you screw up while loading the new bootloader, you have successfully bricked your unbrickable machine.

 

[urjaman]

If I recall correctly, part of what makes it unbrickable is that the bootloader exists in shadow rom which is (almost) impossible to overwrite. It can only be done with a jtag cable, I believe. No software recompile and flash can fix it. And if you screw up while loading the new bootloader, you have successfully bricked your unbrickable machine.

The OMAP has few kb a TI boot ROM inside, that is impossible (atleast not possible with JTAG or programmatically) to change (its a Read Only Memory FFS) that makes the design unbrickable. The boot rom can boot from NAND,SD,UART and as a USB Device. What the TI boot rom loads is a small (<64k) bootloader (called xloader) that initializes the DDR SDRAM above the OMAP, then continues booting (it usually knows where it should have been loaded from...) by loading (for linux) the u-boot bootloader which (atm) shows a pandora logo, loads the linux kernel (and optionally the initrd) and boots the kernel.

If you implement any security in u-boot (or xloader), it is easily bypassed by changing the status of a GPIO pin (connected to the button) used by the TI boot ROM to determine the boot sequence.

 

[Izomiac]

I think that this is a very good idea, and should likely ship standard. Either display owner information on the boot screen, or if someone enters an incorrect password or doesn't type one within 30 seconds or so. The default message could say to mail it to Open Pandora LTD, who in turn would match up the serial number with a shipping address and mail it back, charging a ~$20 recovery fee for their trouble. If the owner can't be contacted then it's scrapped for parts. In the same vein, password resets could be another after-market service provided.

The reason for there to be a default message is so that A) Pandoras don't become a specific target for theft, and B) a misplaced Pandora has a shot of being reunited with its owner... or at least used for something worthwhile.

 

[peca]

I'll be happy with some user defined message and key combination for unlocking screen. I'll try to explain better:
- when turned or awaken on then message appears and device was locked (same as on desktop PC but with user defined message)
- user must enter password or press proper combination of keys (defined by him) to unlock it (ie L shoulder Button + A game button + make circle with left analog)

This is similar to locking function on other PDAs, notebook or on regular desktop. User put some text or picture that be shown as message that show owner, contact and reward info or so.

Yes I know that skilled knowing man can easily break that protection. This is the same as with PDA, phone or notebook. When lucky You get you Pandora back. Without this apparatus You haven't chance.

EDIT: This can act as login screen and screen-saver like dialog which I guess is not too complicated to implement.

 

[droneb]

then lets add up a Software that keep track of the panda last used IP's!